You always hear stories about people who tuck old comics or toys in the attic for years and later find out how valuable they've become. Some guy from Norway just did that with bitcoin.

According to The Guardian, Kristoffer Koch bought 5,000 bitcoins in 2009 for only 150 kroner ($26.60 USD). Years later, that investment unexpectedly grew into a little nest egg.

Koch originally bought the bitcoins writing a thesis on encryption. After that was complete, he forgot about them.

But when the media started heavily covering bitcoin in April 2013, Koch was reminded of his and decided to take a peek at his encrypted wallet containing those original 5,000 bitcoins. He found out that by today's rates, those 5,000 bitcoins are worth NOK5m ($886,000 USD).

This afforded him a nice apartment in Toyen, which is a wealthy area in the Norwegian capital.

Bitcoin value tends to fulctuate a lot, and Koch happened to see his value at the right time. In April 2013, bitcoin value peaked at $266. Then it fell to a low of $50 soon after.

In fact, it hit a high of $197 just this month.

For those who are unfamiliar, bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency that is encrypted. It's bought with traditional currency from a bitcoin exchanger and later change them back for cash or other purchases.

Earlier this month, the FBI shut down Silk Road, which was a website designed that enabled its users to buy and sell illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services anonymously. New York U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara seized $28 million in bitcoins that belonged to Ross Ulbricht, the alleged owner of Silk Road.

If anything, the Silk Road shutdown made Bitcoin more legitimate. Bitcoin no longer has to deal with the reputation of it being a haven for the illegal substance trade, not to mention the lack of a huge crash not having the Silk Road helped prove the currency has other merits. This gives one less argument to Bitcoin's detractors.

The worst part of Silk Road's shutdown is that the US government now holds all the coins that Silk Road's owners did. The whole point of Bitcoin was to avoid government manipulation but now the US government owns over 140,000 coins and can manipulate the market through them if it wishes.

Do you actually think the US government has NOT been mining Bitcoins using their supercomputers, does not already have a LARGE number of them as a result, and has NOT been manipulating Bitcoins to make them appear to be worthless? Just who do YOU think drove the value crash?